By Ute Reissner
16 July 1999
The week-long student protests in Iran have assumed civil war
proportions. Following renewed mass meetings in a number of cities
together with the attempt by hundreds of students to storm the Interior
Ministry on Tuesday the ruling powers called for a mass
counter-demonstration by supporters of the government. At the
pro-government demonstration of several tens of thousands the vice
chairman of the Supreme National Security Council, Hassan Rauhani,
indirectly threatened members of the opposition movement with the death
penalty, which, in view of the current tensions, can be regarded as a
thinly disguised call for lynch justice.
The day before police, supported by secret police and paramilitary
troops, brutally clubbed down several thousand demonstrators taking
part in a protest meeting. For some days it has not just been students
taking part in the demonstrations. Broad layers of the population have
expressed their solidarity. Eyewitnesses and participants have reported
how demonstrators fleeing from the security forces were given shelter
and support in surrounding houses.
The tremendous dynamic of events stems from the profound social
contradictions tearing apart Iranian society. The original attempt by the
ruling powers to make use of the protests by exuding expressions of
understanding for the student actions and promising improvements has
collapsed, alongside the efforts of President Khatami to channel the
movement behind his own political “endeavours for reform”.
The movement lacks a clear political orientation. A divide rapidly
emerged amongst the students between those favouring “compromises”,
who stand firmly behind President Khatami, with his calls for calm and
level-headedness, and the “radicals”, who were not prepared to back
down. According to available sources, however, the radical students limit
their calls to entirely justifiable but short-term demands such as the
release of all imprisoned students, the punishment of those responsible
for
the brutal attacks on students, and so on. From just a few quarters is
the
call to be heard for the resignation of leading religious figures and of
state
president Khatami himself.
For some years the domestic development in Iran has been marked by a
vigorous conflict inside the ruling institutions of power. On one side
is the
established Islamic clergy with its leader, the highest state authority,
Ayatollah Khamenei, and on the other side the “reform faction” of
President Khatami which seeks a closer collaboration with the United
States and Europe. Khatami assumed office in May 1997 following a
spectacular election success. He allowed a number of opposition
movements and newspapers to function, while at the same time,
semi-official thugs employed by the government undertook a wave of
repression against precisely these opposition elements.
The intervention, however, of broad layers of the masses over the space
of a few days has made the nature and limitations of Khatami's
“democratic impulses” unmistakably clear.
At the beginning of the protests the students carried aloft oversized
pictures of the president, whom they revered as a champion of
democracy and freedom. In the meantime, however, Khatami himself has
assumed his place on the other side of the barricades. In a television
broadcast on Tuesday evening he described the students as
troublemakers seeking to damage the government. Behind the protests,
according to Khatami, was a violent threat to the security of the Iranian
state.
For the time being the main aim of the various factions of the governing
elements is to clear the masses from the streets. In a fitting commentary
the German Suddeutsche Zeitung on July 14 wrote: “There is just one
thing that could really endanger the system: when the student protests
become the catalyse for widespread, but up until now amorphous,
dissatisfaction. Millions of Iranians are underemployed and underpaid.
They are not against the Islamic system of values but they want a better
life. Millions work a 16-hour day with two or three different jobs and
are
still barely able to eke out a living for their families ... for the majority
of
university graduates there are no jobs, for bored youth there remains just
the dangerous toying with Western pop culture, drugs and sexual
experiments.
“Should all of these very different tendencies amalgamate, then even the
finest secret service in the world will not be able to prevent something
developing which up until now has only partially existed: political
structures with leaders.”
In its edition of July 12 Die Welt newspaper described the social
situation in the country as follows: “Despite successes with birth control
the present Iranian population of 68 million will double by the year 2025.
Sixty percent of the population of Iran is younger than 20 years old, and
with unemployment officially at 14 percent, an additional 800,000 youth
are seeking jobs every year. Spending power stands at a third of the level
at the time of the revolution. And poverty is on the march.”
Khatami reacted to the crisis with policies which, under the heading
“enhancing democracy,” were directed at opening up Iran to US and
European economic interests.
Khatami was formerly (from 1979) chairman of the Islamic Centre in the
German city of Hamburg, and speaks fluent English and German. Since
his election as president two years ago he has maintained close links with
representatives of the US government—even going so far as to give an
unprecedented interview to an American news program.
Inside Iran Khatami won popularity over the last period by allowing
investigations into a series of brutal murders of writers and
representatives of opposition groups and publications, carried out by the
secret police toward the end of last year. Shortly before regional
elections in February, he pushed through the resignation of the minister
responsible for the secret security services. This was a major factor in
the
sweeping majority (70 percent) that his supporters were able to record
in
the elections.
It is not just recent events, however, which have revealed that at the
heart
of Khatami's “struggle for democracy” are manoeuvres in a faction fight
inside the ruling echelons.
According to reports from “The Iran Brief” http://www.iran.org/tib/,
which is prepared for, amongst others, the Foreign Affairs committees of
the US Congress, the investigations into the series of murders implicate
leading circles around Ayatollah Khamenei. Khatami has since made a
deal with Khamenei to keep the report prepared by deputy Younesi
under wraps. For his part Khamenei was expected to protect Khatami
from the “hard-liners”.
According to the “The Iran Brief,” Khatami demanded additionally that a
“Supreme Economic Council” under the leadership of his closest
confidante Hossein Moussavi should assume various powers for the
direction of economic policy. Parliament was to have no right to interfere
in economic policy. In addition the Finance Ministry was to take over
control of the Bonjad-e Mostafazan Foundation, which currently
organises the Iranian economy along the lines of its nominal chairman
Khamenei, and principally in the interests of the bazaar market traders
of
Teheran.
Despite the no-holds-barred struggle between the factions, the issues
have in reality little to do with a struggle between “democratic reformers”
and “fanatical mullahs”. For Khatami the real issue is not democracy and
for Khamenei it is not religion. The conflict revolves around the political
orientation of the Iranian bourgeoisie under the transformed geopolitical
situation following the collapse of the Soviet Union and under conditions
of a severe economic and social crisis.
The “opening up of the country” propounded by Khatami coincides with
the recently renewed interest on the part of the American government for
limited collaboration with Iran as a factor for regional stability.
This policy is incompatible with democratic rights. The political and social
aspirations of the population can only be achieved with a socialist
program uniting the oppressed peoples of the entire region.